T he Home Reliefinvestigator called on Thursday: a dark-complexioned, middle-aged woman, Jewish, wear- ing glasses. As soon as she entered my room, having climbed three flights of stairs to get there, she made for a chair and, panting, ensconced herself. She asked me about my writing-inform a- tion she had evidently obtained from my Home Relief dossier. Was I close to completing anything I could sell? According to statements made when I first applied, I had said I expected to sell my first short story by June of 1939. It was now May, she pointed out. I was in a psychological j am, I explained, and that was one of the reasons I had moved uptown: to be near my agent- to consult with her. "I don't like this " 1 . d " I ' 11 d . h room, sal. t s sma an WIt out ventilation. I'd like to move if I could find a better one." She said that my landlords were among the worst on her list. They had seized a young woman's clothes when she couldn't pay. "I've told them about the bedbugs I find in the bed," I said. "They haven't done a thing about them. There're a couple of fresh ones I've got on a pin on the curtain." She flinched. "That's awful." " I ' d 1 .1- " IKe to move out. "I don't blame you. But please don't mention that I said so." "I certainly won't. Point is, I'm try- ing desperately to get off relief And a decent place to write in would help." "I'll leave you a note admitting you to my office. This coming Tuesday." She began writing on a pale-green slip of paper. "I've got a list of available rooms, much better than these." "Thanks. Tuesday?" "Yes, l'm in the office all day." And, with eyes rigidly averted from the win- dow curtains, she left. L ater in the day, when I dropped in on my friend Frank Green, he asked me whether I had obtained my new Home Relief identification card, now being is- sued because of widespread chicanery. I hadn't. "She never mentioned it," I said. He produced his own glistening new card to show me. "Your story about the bedbugs must have thrown the woman off," he hypothesized. "You'll I h " Q ave to get one. "0 h, shi t," I lamented. "Why do these things happen to me?" " y d ' d h . " ou on t want to over 0 t Ings, Frank counselled. "Let people go about their jobs. That makes them feel better. Just sit back. That's what I do." "Oh, nuts. To be like you. To let"- I gesticulated-"to let experience flow b " y you. 'What's the use of fightin' it?" Frank herded a bit of tobacco behind his upper lip. 'Where does it get you? Things'll happen when theyre ready." "That's the difference between us." Frank smiled speculatively, and wiped errant strands of tobacco from the corners of his lips. He looked so much like J ames Joyce: gray mustache, eyeglasses, distinguished, sensitive fea- tures. Irishmen both. "Don't forget to ask her for the new card when you see her Tuesday," he advised. " I h " may go t ere tomorrow. "There's no hurry," Frank said. " N T d ' h " ext ues ay s soon enoug . "1' d like to get it over with." "Well, don't tell 'em about the bed- bugs. It distracts 'em. That's the land- 1 d ' b . " or s USlness. "Bedboogs," I mocked. "There's no such word." "'-T ., ' h " 1. ou are gettin a case 0 t e nerves, he said. "I gotta get outta that goddam room. It's stifling." F rom Frank's place I went to visit my agent, Virginia N, to get her reaction to a sketch I had slaved over for the past several nights: about my crucial encounter with Vivian, when I had proposed marriage to her. She had been typing somebody's master's thesis on a portable-to earn extra cash. And when I said I was in love with her, and asked her to marry me, she replied, "1' m sorry. You're out of luck," and, ap- parently agitated over a typing error, she slapped at the portable. To her hor- ror, the light machine bounced from the card table to the carpeted floor, and she sprang up, pale with fright, to re- trieve it. I thought the incident made for a good short piece of prose, suitable per- haps for The New Yorker. But Virginia was dissatisfied. I internalized too much. My feelings were like a lead coffin, she said. "Well, how are you going to tell what the character feels if you're not in- side him," I demurred. " Oh " h . " G d h , no was er rIposte. 0 t e Novelist knows, the narrator knows." s o, today, God the Novelist thought He'd better go over to the Home Relief Bureau and get His new iden- tification card, which His investigator had failed to give Him. But He thought He'd wait until the Chinese woman who cleaned His room arrived, and perhaps ask her if she had something with which to exterminate bedbugs. Instead, the landlord himself arrived bearing a clean sheet, two towels, and a spray can, and apologized for creating a disturbance. "0 h, no," God the Novelist said, "that's all right. Spray all you like." And He left the room. Down on the ground floor, a blue bandanna around her head, her eyes heavily mascaraed, the landlady was dusting the walls with a feather duster. "Ah, I see General Housecleaning is calling on us today," He jested. "Oh, yes." She perceived His allu- sion, and laughed. God the Novelist stepped forth into the radiance of noon. Let's see, He thought. What was that address the in- vestigator gave me? Not wanting to go back upstairs to retrieve the note, He tried to visualize the figures written on the slip of paper she had tendered Him. Oh, yes, 249 East Forty-eighth Street. He walked toward Forty-ninth Street. At Forty-ninth Street, He looked up at the street sign. It read "Forty-ninth Street." What the hell are you doing on Forty-ninth Street? He reproached himsel[ You should be on Forty-eighth Street. He was on the point of turn- ing back- 'Why, you goddam fool," God the Novelist muttered wrathfully. "That's your own street. That can't be righ t." He saw a postman emptying a let- ter box into a canvas pouch. "Say, where's the Home Relief Bureau around here, Mister?" God the Novel- ist asked. " y " h . d ou got me, t e postman sal . " Th ' d h " ere s none aroun ere. He headed back toward the house again to look for the address. After He had made such a clever remark to the THE NEW YORKER, MAY 29, 2006 73